Defend Yourself
by Spirit Ella
Summary: Sequel to "Love Duties". Corinne must teach Louis how to fight after a very awkward situation.


She was waiting for _her_ King in the palace gardens, killing time by talking to her three best friends. He showed up later than expected (as usual, 'cause he was an adorable idiot), and she poisedly turned to face him, her sky blue eyes studying his body language in hope that she would've found even a shred of shame.

"You wanted to see me?" Louis asked.

"Yes, I did. But twenty minutes ago." Corinne replied, smirking. Viveca, Aramina and Renée, right behind her, were eyeing the couple with amused expressions.

"Sorry for that, it's just... y'know... Monsieur Tréville asked me about what hap-" he was cut off by his lover, the indomitable blonde in front of him that took his breath away every single time he saw her with the corner of his eye.

"He should've asked _me_ about that, surely." she rolled her eyes in annoyance. Men... either young or old, they were still lacking a few synapses in their brains. "I hope you have a good apology for the pitiful happenings of last night's party."

Louis swallowed hard. But she was right, actually. The party was going rather nicely, if it hadn't been for a childhood friend of his that showed up out of nowhere and playfully challenged him to a duel in the middle of the ballroom. He had accepted that, of course, and had taken a sword from a nearby wall. All were cheering and rooting for him, until he had distractedly dropped his sword (_"Like a 4 year-old"_, as Corinne had said) and his friend, whose name was Pierre by the way, had obviously pointed the sword at him in sign that he, the King of France, had been beaten in a duel by an almost-unknown Count who had come from Marseille for specifically seeing him.

Louis took a deep breath, "I'm afraid I have no excuse." he admitted, then felt the need of adding something else to their conversation "But I really don't get why you decided to sleep in your own bed last night. Was it because of my duel with Pierre?"

His question produced giggles and exclamations of mock from the brunette, the redhead and the dark-haired standing behind his beautiful female musketeer. Corinne shot them a murderous look before answering him. "Any problem with that? I just felt so ashamed!" she exclaimed "Not only for how you now seem to everyone in the kingdom, but also how _I_ seem to all those people! Do you have any idea of what they thought of you before yesterday night?"

"Corinne, I get it that you're ashamed of last night's mess, but..." he paused, trying to find the right words, "Forcing me to sleep alone? Really, _ma belle_?" Louis decided to use one of the nicknames he usually called Corinne with when they were alone. Little he knew, that would have never helped him make her soften, especially when her own dignity was involved in the whole thing.

"Ha!" she scoffed, laughing, "It'd be better for you to find a way to learn how to fight properly, _Votre Majesté_, or you won't even be dreaming of calling me that again!"

"We can easily come up with a solution for that." he stated, smiling, and for Corinne, a bit over-confident. Still, she didn't reply, making him understand that she was going to hear anything he was going to say. She might've been feisty or stubborn, but she could never be rude to her Louis.

"Teach me."

"I beg your pardon?"

"What I said." he replied, then waited for her to answer.

Corinne looked around, first to the left, then to the right, suddenly being very interested in a garden she had seen a thousand times before, and counted to ten before looking back at him, straight into his brown eyes.

"Hold on a minute, you want _me_ to teach you how to fight?" she asked, surprised, "Well, I can see you've quite changed since that balloon ride. You couldn't even see a girl fighting!" she laughed, also a hint of annoyance in her tone, because as much as she missed that wonderful morning (he kept having stuff to do with other noblemen and he kept telling her he couldn't work on his floating balloon to finally let them have another ride), she didn't miss at all the Regent plotting against Louis and the musketeers being idiots with her and her best friends.

"Please...?" he asked, almost shyly.

"I give you a chance, but only one!" she declared, "First word I hear coming out of your mouth concerning tiredness or stuff like that, and it's over! And if it's over, you get to ask Monsieur Tréville to teach you how to fight. Meaning that you get to train yourself with those men without brain called musketeers!"

"I won't let you down, my love" he replied, daringly giving her a kiss on her right cheek and making Aramina sigh dreamily from behind them. Louis ignored her lover's friend and looked at Corinne, "When shall we start?"

"Now." she said, glancing at how he changed from smiling to pouting in a second, "You really believed that you were going to wait if you had asked _me _to train you? Come on, follow me!" she grabbed his hand ungracefully and dragged him away.

"Think of how fun it will be for the two of you! Training together! Isn't that a great opportunity?" Viveca shouted at her.

"_Casse-toi_, Viveca!" Corinne shouted back, not even turning.

"...Aw, isn't she a proper lady?" Viveca teased, looking at the couple clumsily entering the castle, and laughed along with Aramina and Renée.

* * *

"Where exactly are we going?" Louis asked, following Corinne through the castle corridors without the faintest idea of what were the girl's intentions.

"To the only place in which you'll train without being distrurbed by others" Corinne explained, "The place in which I've trained"

"And where is that?" he asked again.

"You'll find out soon enough. We've arrived" she replied, stopping in front of a wall. She then pushed on it to reveal a secret passageway opening right in front of the two of them. She turned to him, "Come on. Follow me"

Louis followed Corinne inside and the wall closed behind them. There were stairs that took somewhere, too far to see lights coming from what was probably a room. He seriously hoped it was, he didn't want to find himself in an underground graveyard.

"Do these stairs lead anywhere?" Louis asked.

"You bet they do" Corinne smirked, and shifted a torch on the wall toward her. The stairs disappeared and they both started sliding down. Corinne was used to that, Louis obviously wasn't. So he screamed, afraid he wouldn't make it to the end of that tunnel.

Corinne landed on her feet in the training room after a graceful and agile jump, while Louis hit the ground ungracefully. She rolled her eyes and went to help him up.

"Next time I hear you screaming like that, I swear I break up with you." she pulled him on his feet, him holding on to her hand for dear life and still trying not to shake.

"Then I'll make sure that doesn't happen again"

"Alright, enough with the talking" Corinne took out a sword from God knows where under her skirt and pointed it at him, "I have trained in a few days because my goal was to become a musketeer and risk my life saving you,. You, on the other hand, will just learn how to defend yourself during a sword fight. So I'll give you a sword and we'll duel"

"How long will it take me to learn?" Louis asked.

"It will take you as long as it's needed. Of course, if you stay focused until the end, you have more possibilities to win, my love"

"How many days?"

"Not even one. I have better things to do than train my boyfriend!" Corinne exclaimed, and took out a sword from the wall. She threw it to him, "Catch! We begin right now!"

The duel began as soon as he grabbed the sword. He wasn't as bad as she kept saying, but of course her technique was superior. She could jump and twirl, gracefully and never losing balance; at some point, he almost dared nearing his sword to her face, but she was always too fast to let him do it.

"Stay focused, Louis, don't look into my eyes!" Corinne shouted.

"I can't help it, this is just too weird!" Louis tried explaining.

"It's weird because no one has ever taught you this!" her golden sword hit his silver one so hard that the force she put in the movement made him fall to the ground on his back.

"You've been beaten. Again" she smirked, looking down at him, "Any last words, Your Majesty?"

"This isn't the end" surprisingly, he was smirking at her too.

"Oh?" she chuckled, still keeping her sword to his neck. Then his boot hit her high heeled pink one, and he had done that too fast to make her register the movement. She lost the grip on her sword and fell right on his chest. If that wasn't already enough, he was holding his sword to the back of her neck.

"I have a feeling that you're the one who's been beaten this time"

"You're forgetting that I'm your girlfriend, and unless I drink a potion and become evil, you will never feel the need to fight against me" she replied, unamused. His sword left her neck, "Besides, do you really think you can do this with someone that isn't me? I mean... really, Louis? You're going to make anyone fall on you like this? You're dating me, not whoever wants to kill you"

That was awkwardly true.

"Then we'll better keep fighting until I find another way to defeat not just you, but anyone" Louis suggested.

Corinne stood up and grabbed her sword again, "Finally something we can agree on!"

Hours passed, Louis lost the fight probably seven other times, always too slow or too distracted to beat Corinne at what she enjoyed doing the most. She was so delicate as her stylish pink heels hit the ground and she leaned forward to hit his sword with hers, her short skirt making it seem like she was dancing instead of fighting. The more he looked at her, though, the more he learned how to fight like a proper King. And after three whole hours, he finally pointed his sword at her chest and she was too surprised to fight back.

They were both sweating, their clothes sticking to their bodies after too much time spent jumping around that room.

"Congratulations, you've finally learned to fight with someone that won't be as nice as I am" Corinne raised an eyebrow and her lips curved into a smirk. She loved looking at him like that.

"Thank you" Louis lowered his sword and she threw herself into his arms to kiss him on the lips.

"You taste even better after you've done something useful, you know?"

"Next useful thing I should do, then?"

"Fix that bloody floating balloon of yours"

"That shall be done as soon as possible" he assured, "I don't want my beloved musketeer to be upset, now do I?"

"Instead of being all adorable and sweet to me, you may want to look for your friend Pierre and let him see how you actually fight. He's probably still laughing at how ridiculous you've been yesterday night"

Louis let go of Corinne, "Right. ...Where's the exit?"

* * *

"Do you think they'll be having fun?" Viveca asked.

"Oh, I bet they are. They've known each other since they were children, I'd be surprised if they weren't laughing like fools the whole time!" Corinne replied, chuckling.

"Is it just me, though, or Pierre is like, really handsome?" Aramina sighed dreamily, earning just her friends' glares as an answer.

"Here we go again...!" Renée rolled her eyes, snorting.

"Oh, there's Pierre, along with Louis!" Corinne pointed at the two men approaching them.

As soon as Pierre reached the four girls in the gardens, he took Corinne's hand and started shaking it vigorously.

"You must be Corinne, Louis' fiancée! He was talking about you during the whole fight, and I also have to thank you for training him so well!" Pierre's smile couldn't have been bigger. On the other hand, the four girls were really confused, mostly for a particular word he had said.

_'Fiancée'?!_

"Oh, um... you're welcome...!" Corinne smiled back and mouthed a 'What the hell?" to Louis, who answered her by looking somewhere else.

"And you girls must be Viveca, Aramina and Renée, Corinne's friends and colleagues!" his eyes were fixed on Aramina. Pierre took her hand in his and kissed it, "I do remember having a wonderful time last night while dancing with you"

Aramina was about to swoon. His bright green eyes, his dark blond and curly hair, and his kind smile were too much to take. Not to mention that he had just said something to her. She promised herself that from that day forward, the only 'dreamy' boy would have been Pierre.

Corinne took advantage of the situation for running to Louis. She hugged him tight and waited for him to put her down to look right into his eyes.

"Fiancée? I'm your fiancée?" she asked, glaring at him, "We're not engaged, we're dating!"

"We won't be dating anymore, my love" he smiled affectionately.

"First, you'll fix the floating balloon, then we'll have another balloon ride together. You can ask me to marry you that day" she decided.

"But will you say yes?" Louis asked, pouting.

Corinne just pecked him on the lips, smiling, "Of course I will."

* * *

_**Alright, long author's note. Because it's needed.**_

_**Guess who's back? I am! This morning (it was really early... 4 AM when I finished) I was trying to continue chapter 7 of my Frozen fanfiction "The Unlikely Suitor" and I could only write two more words. So I opened this fic and I surprisingly finished it! So here it is! And I must admit, I did miss writing about my Barbie OTP.**_

_**This is most likely not to have a sequel, because I suck at writing about weddings... I always left all that stuff to my two friends Lyssita Lennon and Creme Caramel.**_

_**Oh, since I guess most of you aren't French or study the language, 'Casse-toi' means 'Fuck you'. That's why Viveca said "Isn't she a proper lady?" about Corinne.**_

_**I don't know if now that Barbie and The Secret Door comes out I'll get more ideas about fics, though I always update my profile. You may find something new in there really soon. And NOT concerning Frozen (even if I'm currently obsessed with that movie and especially with my OTP, Helsa)**_

_**For now, however, I must say "Adieu".**_

_**Spirit Ella**_


End file.
